By Lakhram Bhagirat
When someone decides to join the law enforcement sector, they know that they are literally putting their life on the line. They are okay with the fact at any given time they can be called on to defend the citizenry and that was exactly what Superintendent of Police, Leon Fraser, was doing when he became the target of notorious criminals.
On April 2, 2002, Fraser and a team were responding to a report on the Linden- Soesdyke Highway when he was gunned down. Media reports from back then indicated that the shootout was a well-orchestrated strike with the sole focus being Fraser.
At the time of his death, Fraser was one of the most feared/respected members of the Guyana Police Force and was responsible for a number of successful anti-crime operations. Based on information available, on the fateful day, Fraser led a team to Yarrowkabra on the Linden- Soesdyke Highway to investigate reports of a vehicle matching the description of one that was believed to have been hijacked by the February 23, 2002 Camp Street Prison escapees.
When they arrived, they were engaged in a gun battle with five men suspected to be the escapees. The men turned their guns on Fraser and took him out before making good their escape. Fraser was a controversial member of the Police Force as well as one of the most feared. There are reports that when he walked into communities riddled with crime, there would be silence and an instant clearing out of those criminal elements.
Sections of society lauded him while others accused him of Police brutality. Until his demise, Fraser had been involved in many high-profile anti-crime operations and was instrumental in the siege that led to the death of the notorious Linden London.
Fraser’s widow, Nadera Fraser, told the <<<Sunday Times Magazine>>> her husband joined the Guyana Police Force as a constable, but because of his potential he was encouraged to apply to the Cadet Training Programme offered by the Guyana Defence Force. He was successful in his application and upon completion, returned to the Police Force and spent some time in the Mounted Branch before moving to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Leon and Nadera have a daughter together and were a couple for over 19 years before he was killed. She describes him as being a quiet and reserved person:
“Nadia (our daughter) was nine years old when Leon was killed. He was a quiet person and very reserved. As a matter of fact when we met, I was the one who approached him and that should tell you about the type of person he was. He was very reserved not in a manner of being ignorant of his environment, because he was always alert.”
She said that while Fraser was one of the most respected Policemen of his time, he was also very domesticated. He was also disciplined in a sense that the world did not see. She and their daughter got to see it every day when he would get up at 05:00h and clean the stove, make coffee, cook and then go off for exercise with his squad.
He always helped around the house that they shared at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary.
“He got discipline from the Force. He started as a constable and then he was pushed to complete the cadet course and from there, he took off. What he learned there (at the cadet course) during the rigorous training, he applied it to his work even though some people may say unorthodox or he did it different, but it was effective in achieving the end result,” his widow noted.
Nadera has always been a businesswoman and on April 2, 2002, a container loaded with goods had just arrived and she was going to have it cleared through Customs. She vividly remembers the last conversation she had with Leon and says that unto today it is burned into her memory.
“He had called me and told me that when he is off duty, he will get some of his boys and we will empty the container; that was while I was going to clear it. But when he called back later that afternoon, around quarter to one (12:40h), I told him that we have to wait until the next day and he said that was good, because he now have to go up the Highway to check out a report about the car the bandits had hijacked on Good Friday day.”
She said she was at the stall in Stabroek Market when rumours started circling about her husband’s death. One of the vendors then called her and enquired about whether the rumours were true, but she had no knowledge.
“About an hour later, one of his friends came and said ‘Nadie, I got something to tell you’ and he said that we got to go to the (funeral) parlour and identify the body. Me and my daughter went and we identified the body and so on.”
It was not until later that night a senior officer reached out to the family and officially informed them of Fraser’s death.
His death hit Nadera so hard that when she got the news, she just sank to the ground and could not have moved afterwards. A feeling of numbness overtook her body and she was in a daze. She has very little memory of the days after her husband’s death.
Nadera became extremely cautious and fearful for her family’s lives and slipped into severe depression. She had to have the intervention of doctors before she could begin to do anything else. The business she worked so hard to build was dwindling away and she had no drive to work again.
However, she found the strength in her daughter and began pushing forward. After two months, she returned to work and began rebuilding. She remained a resident at Eve Leary for over five years after her husband’s death and has since moved out and even got remarried.
“Even though I am remarried, I still do miss him. He was a part of me and he was a very good man. When he died, my daughter took it very hard because he would wake up every morning and do his thing and take her to school before 8:00 am. When we went to the parlour to identify his body, she screamed there and after we went home, she screamed and threw down the furniture, but since then she has been bottling up her feelings. She is just like him. She is reserved and don’t talk too much. She just goes on with life.”
The night before he was killed was Easter Monday and Fraser was supposed to take Nadera and Nadia to the seawalls to hang out, but he did not, and what he told them made it clear that he was aware of the level of danger he was in.
“We were to go to the seawall, but he sat in his room and he took all his shoes with Nadia and they sat down and they polished all the shoes. He even told me to bring mine and they polished it.
3That night he told me that “they planning to kill me, you know’. That’s why we did not go out Easter Monday night. The morning before he died, he had this safari jacket and he put it on. I told him that if you got to go out aren’t you supposed to put on a bullet-proof? He said ‘one time you got to dead, not two time you does dead’ and I said put on your bullet-proof and he said when he go over (to Police HQ), he will put it on.”
Nadera said that she was aware when her husband was killed, many persons were “jubilating”, but she sought to remind that he was only doing what he was trained to do and that was to catch the bad guys and ensure that there was peace in Guyana.
